1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a method of manufacturing graphene, carbon nanotubes, fullerene, graphite, or a combination thereof having a regulated resistance, and a material manufactured using the method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Graphene is a substance made of pure carbon, with atoms arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern similar to graphite, but in a one-atom thick sheet. It is an allotrope of carbon whose structure is a single planar sheet of sp2-bonded carbon atoms.
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. These cylindrical carbon molecules may be used in nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of materials science and technology. Carbon nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family.
Graphite is an allotrope of carbon. Graphite is a semimetal, which is an electrical conductor. Graphite may be used as an electrode.
A fullerene is a molecule of carbon which may have the shape of a tube, a sphere or an ellipsoid. When the fullerenes are spherical, they are often called buckyballs. Cylindrical fullerenes are referred to as carbon nanotubes or buckytubes. Fullerenes have a similar structure to graphite that is formed of stacked graphene sheets of fused hexagonal rings, but the fullerenes may have pentagonal rings (occasionally, heptagonal rings).
Graphene, carbon nanotubes, fullerene, or graphite may be patterned to form a fine structure. For example, the patterning process may include forming a pattern by etching a structure of a carbon material by an atomic force microscope (AFM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), focused ion beam (FIB), or photolithography process. However, a structure prepared in this manner may be physically or chemically damaged during the process, or the characteristics of the structure may be changed due to materials used in the process.
Therefore, improved methods of changing the electrical characteristics of graphene, carbon nanotubes, fullerene, or graphite still needed.